Buying rental property?

I have considered buying rental property for extra income. Is it worth the hassle? I suppose if you get good trustworthy renters it's not too bad, but find them is the challenge. What are your experiences?

 

If you have capital do invest I think it's a great deal. I have a friend who borrows from the bank, buys a house, rents it and with the rent money he's able to pay the bank and make some profit. You can do this the number of times want.

 

Rental property is a really good form of investment. However, make sure you check out the area and get a firm idea of who your prospective renters are first.

If the neighbourhood seems good and the tenants around the property you are planning to invest in seems reliable, (young professionals, expatriates, students) go for it! But if not, you might risk biting off more than you can chew and then you might have something to contribute to the 'tenants from hell' thread on this forum.

 

Hey, where is that tenants from hell thread? I'd love to see it...!

Yeah, buy something by the beach, that always attracts people and you will make good money, nothing like being able to invest and knowing where to do it.

 

Rental properties can provide excellent returns on an investment, but have many unique challenges and usually require hands-on involvement that goes well beyond just getting a place and finding people to live there. If the thought of investing in a rental appeals enough to you, your next step would be to educate yourself as much as you can about what its like to own a property and what factors affect ownership in your area. From there, you can start to make some more individual planning decisions, like whether or not you want to manage your property yourself or if it would be a good fit for you to employ a property management company. If you feel prepared to lay that foundation of planning and put a strong effort into acquiring and caring for a property than this could definitely be a great investment for you. Good luck!

 

I do this myself so I know quite a lot about it. Honestly, it is a lot of work. The extra income that comes in is great, but I can not recall how many times I've had to unfortunately take tenants to court. Just like anything else there are many pros and cons to buying a home to rent it out. @ebargan gave you great advice and I would definitely take their word for it. Educate yourself as much as possible about renting and becoming a landlord so that you are not ill prepared. I wish you the best and encourage you to follow through with this because the hard work does pay off.

Best of luck!

 

That is a great mind indeed Gelsemium, if i could get the money, i would do exactly that...but i believe, with the lessons am learning from renting out, prime locations are the best in this case scenario...that is if i want to strike gold

 

That sounds awesome considering you can always rent your locations, pretty much having all the money on the move!

 

Buying real estate to rent out is usually a good deal, as long as your property doesn't have any chronic problems like humidity for example and you get lucky with the renters you get.
make sure you remember to account for your yearly taxes when setting the rent amount though

 

Location is what matters most when it comes to rental property. You can make you some good extra income or even enough to simply quit your job. There are a number of people I knew who inherited such property that never bothered trying to get a job because the money they made was enough to live on. But the trick is to buy rental property that you can lease out easily. There's some information below which you might find useful: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/mortgages-real-estate/08/buy-rental-property.asp